80's and futbol (professional--not against 10 year olds)

This past Friday we had an 80's party which was, with apologies to all of the people who have thrown and/or attended 80's parties in the past, the Greatest 80's Party Ever. This, I think, was due to the fact that the Chileans are obsessed with the 80's. They worship Madonna, U2, and Iron Maiden. They wear 80's clothes and have 80's haircuts (Think mullets. Lots and lots of mullets.). So naturally, when KellyAnne announced we were going to have an 80's party for her birthday, everyone got really excited. Everyone dressed even more 80's than they normally do, and it was a riot. People actually chose 80's figures as muses (we had Madonna, Michael Jackson, Tiffany...). There were lots of leggings, an absurd number of high-tops, elbow-length black gloves, upturned collars, side ponytails, blue eyeshadow, inordinate amounts of hairspray, leather jackets, jean jackets, tiny running shorts... It was phenomenal. What surprised me the most is that even though most of the party attendees were foreigners, everyone managed to throw together an 80's outfit with frightening speed and accuracy. I don't know about you, but when I travel, I don't tend to pack outfits for the occasional costume party that I may or may not attend. Kudos have to be given to KellyAnne, who singlehandedly outfitted about 80% of the people who live in our house. The girl has a ton of 80's clothes.

The owners of the house, Jorge and Marisol, also got really into it, allowing us to use the house, rearrange the furniture, invite whoever we wanted, stay up until 5am, etc, etc. They even got dressed up themselves, and didn't care in the least that their 10 year old son was exposed to the drunken antics of some 40-odd foreigners. In fact, Javier appointed himself Party Photographer, dressed up as a (10 year old) 80's gangster, and proceeded to soak up the inebriated attention that all the girls slathered on him.

How, you may ask, did you find enough people to come to your party since you are brand new in Santiago and don't have many friends? Quite easily, really. We just told everyone in the house about it, and everyone in the house invited 2 or 3 friends, who in turn invited 2 or 3 friends, and we had ourselves a party comprised of about 15% Chilenos, 5% Americans, .01% Italians, .01% Mexicans, and 79.8% Swedes. All of a sudden there are a lot of Swedish people around. I'm not really sure why.

Highlights of the party included KellyAnne dancing, according to Marisol, "like she had just snorted a bunch of coke" (which she hadn't, Mom and Dad); Nate dancing like a deranged robot; and numerous, rabid cries of "al seco! al seco! al seco!" which basically translates to "chug! chug! chug!" Which people did.

Pictures! you say. We want pictures! Of course you do. A bunch were taken, and as soon as someone takes pity on us and sends some our way via email we will post them on here for you. The pictures are, obviously, fantastic.

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Besides the 80's party, the only other thing of note that we've done was to attend a real, live professional futbol game. For those of you who have been to a Latin American futbol game (I'm looking at you, Whitey and Karen), you know how absolutely crazy they can be. The game we attended was Universidad de Chile vs. Universidad Catolica (both from Santiago). Don't be fooled by the names, though, the teams have absolutely nothing to do with the schools other than the fact that they are funded by them. The players are professionals (not, contrary to what we thought for the first half of the game, students) and the fans are rabid. The crowd was separated into three sections, those cheering for la U, those cheering for Catolica, and those who do not wish to get trampled in a riot. We sat in the last section. Each cheering section stands behind its goal, jumping up and down, beating drums, and singing songs in unison at the top of their lungs. There were specific songs for every situation. There was one to sing after a good shot on goal, one to sing when your team is winning, one to sing to taunt the other team's fans, and one to sing to drown out the singing of the other team's fans. Also, there were lots of songs that included whistling. Whistling, we have since learned, is the Chileno way of expressing disgust. When fans are unhappy, they whistle. When they all whistle at once, it hurts your ears. When the team you are cheering for scores a goal (which ours did--la U), that is your cue to run around on top of the seats, shove your friends, and curse a lot out of sheer joy. This even happened in our section, which was the section where parents brought their children to be safe. Another characteristic of the Chilean futbol game is the presence of riot squad police all around the edges of the playing field and in the stands. This is for several reasons, one of which is because when a player from the opposing team goes to take a corner kick, the fans throw anything they can get their hands on at him, and the riot police has to use his shield to protect him. Another reason there are riot police is because at the end of the game, fans like to climb the (spiked) fences and run around on the field trying to get close to the players. The last reason is because at the end of the game, whether your team wins or loses (ours won), the people go absolutely out of their mind nuts. Outside the stadium we were thrust into a crowd that was, among other ways, showing their anger/exhiliration by throwing rocks and glass bottles at the police. Once the perpetrator threw his object, he and his friends started running, causing the entire crowd to start running, and making the police circle around on their motorcycles throwing menacing glares at anyone under the age of 30. Needless to say, it was absolute chaos. We did our best to stick together (there were 6 of us), and we had to change our route a number of times so as not to be within 10 feet of someone throwing a projectile at a policeman. We had to walk a good 45 minutes home too, because at important games like this one, where the fans go crazy, they shut down all forms of transportation.

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We are leaving for the north of Chile in, well, in 5 minutes. You probably won't be getting a blog entry until a week or so from now, so I hope this holds everyone off until then...